I first loved you, once.
I fell in the summer’s eve.
The sweet moon passed
over sycamores,
pulsating
limbs and leaves, bulbous
veins zinging with unity,
belonging.

I didn’t know you, once.
I didn’t know you at all.

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Apologies once more for my inability to post regularly, life seems to be in the way at the moment ha…
Haven’t written poetry for a while, let me know what you think 🙂
Image is my own.

I watched you die,
a gnarled contortion of before,
burning eyes raised towards me.
You ensnare my ankles
in skeletal vices
screaming
begging
it was a mistake, honest.
Lakes of magma
have no path to cross,
and taunting flames
lick your festering wounds.
Soul-less windows,
serpentine strangulation.
I do not fear you.
Manipulative greed is your anchor
but light putrefies you,
shredding you into fragments.
You are a shadow,
lurking in the crevices of my mind,
unseen whispers.
I do not fear you.
I watched you die.

Her teeth clamped, catching the little snag in her nail that had been bugging for twenty minutes now. A light tug peeled a sliver back, smoothing the rounded edge in one practised motion and stealing a flake of nail polish in its wake. She sighed in a manner that almost formulated a ‘tut’, inspecting the damage done to the manicure. Her gaze never lifted. Lounging opposite, he raised one overgrown eyebrow with a mild smile touching his lips, expectation lingering in the void between them. His watch ticked. He waited. She avoided.

He cleared his throat. She could sense his eyes sliding over her petite frame, tucked away securely in her modest blouse. She didn’t see his eye rest on the soft flesh revealed through her collar, the buttons parted enough to allow him a glimpse of the hollow in the base of her neck. A pendant nestled there, making its home in the subtle dip amongst winged collarbones. The twist of silver, a simple cynosure. Feeling his scrutiny burning her skin, she shifted in her seat, dropping her hands into her lap as she forced herself to meet his eye. His smile broadened, remembering those same eyes enflamed in passion as her fiery hair had haloed flushed cheeks. Searching his face fleetingly, she bristled. Snap out of it, girl. You’re not the guilty one here…Emboldened by her self-assertion, she straightened up to challenge his stare fiercely.

“You have some fucking cheek, asking me to come here. On a Saturday, too. What are you playing at?” If her voice gave her nerves away, his face didn’t show it.

She was met with silence. He simply toyed with the corner of a napkin, one which had melted into a puddle on the scratched table that formed a vast barrier between them. Yet it was not distant enough from him, not for her liking. His tongue flickered across his cushioned top lip as he gazed at her, savouring his words before allowing them to spill.

“Doll, I don’t mean no inconvenience to ya,” he murmured with his soft lilt, “just thought I’d pay ya a visit, see how you’re doing since…” he trailed off. Damn the bastard for bringing it up again.

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So it seems I’m having another creative dry spell at the moment…but this piece of fiction I’ve been slowly fitting together for a while. Of course, it is just the beginning, and I haven’t entirely decided where it will lead yet (partly the reason it has no title yet), but I hope to gain some feedback on this little snippet – does it capture your attention? Does it make you want to read on? Is it worth developing further? Let me know what you think! I may post another bit soon if my dregs of creativity can spark into something a little more substantial 😀

On a visit to Paignton Zoo, I came across these lovely little Emperor Tamarins, and I adore their moustaches. They were incredibly inquisitive and seemed fascinated by my DSLR, following the lens and leaning against the glass to get a better look. I think they could hear the shutter closing because they always reacted to the sound. I have many pictures of them but these are my favourites. The editing is minimal, just a little added sharpness and contrast because shooting through the glass panes tends to dull the pictures.

All images are my own, please do not use without permission and credit.

Another attempt at Prose Poetry, one which is definitely going in my final assignment. I hope I’m getting this prose poetry stuff right, because it’s so much harder than I expected! Enjoy, let me know what you think 😀

Your name rolls across my tongue to meet the barricade of my teeth, crushing impulse with sense. A shimmer in the eye distracts from my deep nasal exhale and you stare, brows twitching with an air of concern that gives you away. But hush, hush. You leave a finger print on Cupid’s Bow, as only you could. The bow is taut, poised for passion or perhaps pain.

My pride is turned away from your gaze and I narrow my eyes to the spinning letters dancing on the departure board. My tears pour back up their estuary to their humble spring, a spring bubbling from nerves and synapses. Your nose nudges the curve of my neck and sighs. I can feel your palm, warm against the dip of my spine while the other traces my shoulder blades. I have never felt more complete than while here in your grasp.

Pressed together, encircled in your aura. Your breath tickles the delicate twists of my ear as you whisper; This is not the end, not yet. You have buried into my flesh, impossible to extract. Your absence wounds me, soothed only by your voice. A single tear is the downfall of this mask, dissolving it until all that remains in my hands is the solution. Not long, not far. We’ll make it. Forehead to forehead, your pupils fling the curtains wide and search my eyes. Dawn cracks with the first rays of a smile and somehow, I believe you now.

First things first, following my recent neglect of this blog I’ve decided to spruce it up a bit, with a new theme and improved organisation of my posts to hopefully make it generally better. It appears I am something of a binge-blogger, as I discovered whilst scrolling back through previous posts, and my recent hiatus is to be blamed on my Easter break. I do intend to post more often, whenever the creative bug bites.

Anyway, just before my Easter break I roughly threw together the skeleton for this short piece and have decided to revisit and flesh it out today. I may use it for my next Uni work but for now it is simply playing with a different style. If you know me well, don’t panic – as with most of my work it is a persona, the ‘me’ is not me 🙂
I apologise if the subject is a little…intense. Anyway, have a read and let me know what you think!

Enough now, please. I can’t. I’m on my knees dangling from your loose hand, submerged in my own pleading. Why do you keep doing this, why do you do this to me? You’re oblivious. You don’t see, you can’t. How could you? There’s a different world behind your eyes and you won’t let me in. What will it take? Your skin scolds me yet your heart is ice, a cobra from your mouth leaving me in paralysis. I am a rabbit in the headlights, kicked in the chest by a demon that plagues me, you, plagues us. The void widens, leaving me suspended in the swirl of my own words, shards that tried to pierce the stone mask. Such contempt is a barbed needle, and once more I accept an insult that shreds me inside. It shreds me when I try to remove the sting, try to save myself from your venom. You are possessed by a malevolence you cannot reign in, and I fall prey to your corrosion. What will be left? Like a plaster on a bullet wound, sorry just doesn’t cover it. I beg, I beg, no more, please.

I’m not a particularly sentimental person, or a huge fan of expressing my emotions in respects of my partner – I’ve never been one to flood Facebook with intense and frequent outpourings of devotion. But I think maybe once in a while is acceptable, so…

Today I am grateful for Jake, and I want the world to know that. Seeing as I can’t stand on the roof and yell it, posting it here will have to suffice. I have a lot to be grateful for. He keeps me sane, even though often he is the cause for my insanity 😛 He is my anchor, keeping my head out of the clouds and on a level. He has the best sense of humour, and always knows how to make me smile, even when I feel like shouting or crying or running. We’ve been through hard times and dragged each other through them, and we’ve kicked back and sailed through the good times with Bob Marley and a cold cider. We play and joke like children and argue like an old married couple. We have so many in-jokes we can’t even remember them all. We go for meals and movies, we have the hearts and candles and flowers and teddies, but we also have the assassin films, Sims 3, play fights, pillow fights, the yelling at the Xbox when some bastard shoots us AGAIN, the debates over which Avenger is best, and of course, stealing bites of each other’s food (well, Jake stealing mine…). He can read me like a book, and I him. He knows my worst fears and my greatest dreams. We compare and consider what the first things to buy would be, if either of us won the lottery (Jake would buy a KFC bucket, of course) and whether we would even tell anybody. No-one else rolls their eyes quite like Jake does when I throw the millionth outfit on to the bed in a fit of I-hate-all-my-clothes. I trust him with my life. He turns into a 5year old child when he’s had one too many, or when it’s Christmas, or when he’s just generally excited at anything. His enthusiasm for life can brighten anyone’s day. He’s protective but not stifling, concerned but not controlling. He fits into my family as if they have known no different, and his family have welcomed me with open arms. He drives me so far round the bend I could reach to slap his ass and sometimes I have no idea what nonsense he is talking. But I wouldn’t change a thing, not in the slightest. Read more…

Blogger Sethsnap often posts photographic story prompts, where followers are invited to take an image he has taken as inspiration for a story/poem/creative writing outlet. I often read the contributions but have never taken part myself, until now. It was a fun little exercise which I recommend, whether you want to break Writers’ Block or have fun trying your hand at something creative.

Crestfallen, she ran her hand through the unruly halo of hair that tumbles down her back. It wasn’t there before, honest Teddy. Hopping from foot to foot, she chewed her bottom lip indecisively. ‘KEEP OUT’. The words taunted her from a foot above her head. She hugged Teddy to her chest, pulling the scarf wound around her thin neck tighter. ‘PRIVATE PROPERTY’. Glancing around, she sighed. Why? It’s not fair! No-one ever comes here, not anymore. Her coarse boots barely made a sound as she crept forward, the snow muffling her footsteps into a dull, softened padding. She had been down this track a thousand million times, twirling with autumn leaves and singing the springtime bird calls. But now, in the biting wind desolation of winter, her playground was forbidden. The land was no longer anonymous, and this sign built a barrier between her path home and her path to serenity, found in the deep, cave-like knotted undergrowth. Her heart pounded in her chest. She had never broken the rules before, at least not like this. Of course, she had swiped chocolate from the pantry and stayed up past bedtime before, but this was different. Big, scary world kind of different. Temptation snaked into her mind. She had been here every day for a nearly a year, one sign was not going to change that. Full of resolution, she took a step forward.

Behind her, a flock of birds screamed into the air suddenly, a cloud of distress fleeing from an unknown disturbance. Startled, she crouched like a tribal hunter, alert, poised and steady. Eyes wide, they scanned the shadows, but though they found nothing, she did not feel at ease. Her chest heaved with nerves, the bellows to the fire of fear. There was no way she was going back home now, not past those trees. She had seen a fox once, evil beady eyes staring at her while his tongue flickered across pointed teeth, and she had screamed, scaring it away. She didn’t want to see one today, not a fox, or, or worse. Facing the track once more, she glanced at the imposing sign with a deep breath, before darting with the agility only a frightened child could possess into her familiar haven. A puff of snow kicked up a wake behind her as she ran, leaving the sign at its watchtower as she disappeared deeper down the track. She didn’t hear the snap of twigs. She didn’t see the sliding shadow gliding from the tree-line to the track. She didn’t see the dark silhouette facing of the entrance to her beloved forest. She only saw her breath rising before her, the twists of the path guiding her further until it turned sharply to the right. She didn’t keep following it. She pushed herself straight on, tearing through the lower branches of skyscraper trees until her den came into view. Trembling, she slipped between the boulder and the tree stump into the dipped den, pressing her stomach to the frosted dirt floor. She leant her forehead on Teddy, praying each punch of her heart didn’t reveal her hiding place. She’d be safe here, right?

When relaxing with my housemates yesterday, we embarked on the classic game of ‘Would you rather…’ to pass the time (I think it originated from ‘would you rather have arms for legs or legs for arms?’ – arms for legs of course!) Quickly running out of comparisons, we enlisted the help of one of many websites that generate these binary oppositions and briefly entertained ourselves with debating this or that. Of course, we couldn’t leave it black and white, we had to inject some grey areas of ‘it depends if…’ or ‘do they mean…’ to see if we could find a loophole ourselves.

One example was:

Would you rather…

Never read a book again OR never hear music again?

I decided I would rather never read a book again, on the basis of the loophole that exists – the wonderful world of audio books. But of course, this is not truly satisfactory.

I have pondered over this question more than others we had asked, because I can honestly say I have no idea which would be better, or rather, which would be worse. I mean, think about it from my point of view. I love books. I’m studying a degree in English, for crying out loud. While not every book inspires my life, and I certainly don’t hold some of the ‘Classics’ in as high regard as they receive, there’s still something so attractive about reading a book.

Picture this: it’s a freezing cold day in winter. You can’t feel your hands, and in fact you’ve pretty much convinced yourself that you have frostbite in your fingertips now. Your jeans are damp from the rain you trudged through and the splash by that puddle at the bottom of the garden path you always forget about. The key seems to take an age to find its home in the lock, delaying your return to sanctuary. You practically fall through the door, dropping the stack of paper you had been clutching and the ten-tonne bag on to the floor, entering your domain in a far from graceful manner. A sigh. Scooping everything back up, you make it to your bedroom and drop everything on the desk, rubbing your hands and seeking the warmth of your radiator. A trip to the kitchen for that much-needed cup of tea, slightly sweeter than normal, and returning to the bedroom. You change out of your clinging wet clothes and throw on those old fluffy pyjamas you probably should’ve thrown out years ago. The steam from the tea warms your face as you tentatively take a sip, careful not to scold your cold chapped lips. Perched on the end of your bed, you pick up the book you’ve been dying to read, flicking the pages with your thumb like a flip book. Unconsciously leaning back against your pillows, you open the cover. The traces of set jaw and frown fade the stress of your day away, and you visibly relax. The marching procession of curves, lines and dots parade the page, hooking a lasso around your mind and tugging you in. That’s it, you’re found.

You’re found in a world only you can build, guided by an unknown entity which presents to you a skeleton, which you alone can flesh out. You meet people you don’t realise you already know, their faces sculpted by the thousand faces you pass each day in the street. You discover which ones you like, relate to, are attracted to – and their opposites. You get sucked in to a whole universe of someone else’s life, following their days and relationships, their emotions. But their emotions are your emotions. You feel tense when they tighten up, worry when it all falls apart, celebrate when they fix it back up, and wonder what will happen next. You might meet their Mum or Dad, a close friend, or fall in love with their perfect match. A perfect match who, coincidentally, just happens to tick all of your own boxes. Perhaps they travel the world, get in a fight, rob a bank, save the day, who knows what could happen in this place. You walk their streets, wear their clothes, say their words, you think their thoughts. The edges are a little blurred now, who starts where?

At some point, you are jolted back to reality, catapulted into Today, landing with a bump into Now. Looking around your room, you find yourself pondering the latest events of the book. What would you do? How’s it all gonna figure out? Without realising, you’ve shoved your feet into a cocoon in the duvet, you’re led practically in the foetal position and yep, when you go to take another sip you find you’ve finished you’re cup of tea already. An hour has slipped you by. The tasks you were supposed to do are now calling your name fervently, but it doesn’t seem so hard now. Even the sun seems to have repelled the rain for a while. You get up and continue with your evening, but in the back of your mind a little door creaks open, a face peeping out with a ‘pssst!’ beckoning you back into their world.